蜜芽传媒

Owen Bennett Jones introduces insight, wit and analysis from 蜜芽传媒 correspondents around the world. In this edition, Natalia Antelava hears the complaints of Uzbeks who say they're being singled out for abuse in Kyrgyzstan; Edward Stourton takes an enlightening, if exhausting, walk along a World War II "freedom path" through the Pyrenees.

Fear amid the ashes

Kyrgyzstan's recent history is bleak, and riven with power struggles. A former Soviet Republic, landlocked and impoverished, in 2005 it was also the place where a popular revolt forced President Askar Akayev from power. And in 2010 his successor President Kurmanbek Bakiyev went the same way.

Yet worse was to come, especially around the city of Osh, when the high political disorder was eclipsed by raging conflict between neighbouring members of the Kyrgyz and Uzbek ethnic groups. Hundreds of people died; thousands fled; houses were torched and neighbourhoods began to live in fear. As Natalia Antelava found out, for many young men in particular, the ethnic tension in the country has not gone away.

Tramping back in time with a walk through the mountains

During World War II, many kinds of people had to find an escape route - and they weren't all serving members of their countries' armed forces. There were also civilians fleeing arrest or deportation, escapees from prison or concentration camps, and those simply lost in the chaos of war.

Edward Stourton joined the people walking one of the war's most vital paths to freedom - the Chemin de la Liberte, a gruelling hike over more than 60 kilometres over the Pyrenees.